"I shall nevertheless make an effort and follow anew the same path as that on which I yesterday entered, i.e. I shall proceed by setting aside all that in which the least doubt could be supposed..."
> If we are going to make the introductory philosophy readings be clear and well-written, I have a modest suggestion for the texts that should be read, but tragically modesty prevents me from uttering it.
I think this is actually worth pursuing—a syllabus of exceptionally clearly written and engaging readings that is designed with the sole purpose of getting people hooked. I think a lot of what makes someone like Machiavelli or parts of Nietzsche so compelling to newcomers is precisely this property of their writing. So away with the cumbersome modesty! What is the philosophical canon of clear and compelling writing?
Yeah, some of his writing could get pretty dense and I don't know how much of this can be attributed to his own style or is the fault of his translators. If you've never gotten a kick out of reading him, I would start with Zarathustra.
"We’d do a lot more to get young people interested in philosophy if their first exposure came from someone who writes clearly rather than someone writing 400 years ago trying to win a competition for writing the world’s longest sentence—and succeeding!"
That's a pretty long sentence there... At least by modern standards.
Descartes, like any philosopher worth his salt, must be esoteric. He can't express himself too clearly, otherwise the powers-that-be will understand he's attacking their most cherished assumptions and the basis for their rule. Hence the verbiage. The Anglo-Saxon tradition has always worked under a stronger assumption of freedom of speech, which helps to explain why their philosophers are (relative) lightweights compared with the verbose continental tradition.
Kant is quite wordy, much like Descartes here, but I *think* the idea behind his categorical imperative has some value to it. It was something along the lines of "In evaluating the choices you make, ask yourself what the world would be like if everybody made the same choices. Would such a world still make sense, or even be able to function?" To simplify it even further, "we shouldn't make ourselves moral exemptions. 'Rules for thee, but not for me' is wrong".
'Rules for thee, but not for me' is a pretty common criticism in current political and cultural discourse. I frequently see it argued that a lot of our social and cultural elites basically live in a 'rules for thee, but not for me' way. In this sense, I find Kant's philosophical arguments to be as valuable today as they ever were.
Sure, the categorical imperative has some value, but Parfit probably has 5–10 similarly good ideas. I'd say Parfit's clarification of population ethics was a bigger breakthrough in moral philosophy than anything Kant did.
Possibly. But they were able to tackle controversial subjects in their time without being cancelled or imprisoned, in a way that clear writers can never do.
I feel a wave of relief wash over me at seeing someone admit that Descartes and Kant are not as good as the best modern philosophers. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when it seems like nobody but me believes this.
I kind of get what what you might be trying to say, but I'm curious how bad at philosophy they were for their time. I'd assume there's some reason they're ranked among the greatest philosophers. I'd love to hear more on why you think they were bad at philosophy, because that sounds like a pretty big claim.
Leo Strauss makes this point in Persecution and the Art of Writing. He cites Jewish examples -- Judah Halevi, Maimonides, and Spinoza. Descartes certainly shook things up, but by then -- after Francis Bacon -- lots of people were starting to shake things up.
I was told once by a Spanish speaker that these long meandering sentences are considered good literary style in Spanish. Can’t confirm but seems plausible. Could be the same in French. Probably also much easier to follow sentences like this in a language with grammatical gender and more elaborate verb conjugations.
It is funny how you take your having difficulty reading something and then describe it in such a way that makes it sound like a sign of your superior insight.
Not quite. He's saying that because he understood it despite the difficulty, he's able to see that it didn't have to be that difficult. So his claim isn't based on his having a hard time with the easy task of philosophy, it's based on his succeeding at the hard task of reading Descartes.
It might be true that "difficult" is an ambijective (https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/05/05/ambijectivity/) word, but in this case I'm pretty sure Descartes is objectively difficult. (One great way to measure this would be to check the Flesch–Kincaid score of a Descartes essay against, say, a Bertrand Russell essay.)
What the Hell? Descartes is not only transparent, above all, the man wrote brief opuscles, instead of long books.
On top of that his cosmovisión was simple and mostly correct. Remove God, naturalize mind and you get Chalmers (look at the length of “the conscious mind”! And how much over Descartes you get?)
Of course this is the problem for professional philosophers: Naturalistic dualism is so sound and clear that not much has been left for others.
Compared to contemporary writers he is clear: Look at Shakespeare (a popular writer!), Milton or Moore.
He was writing for an audience of scholastic scholars.
Additionally the logical structure of the arguments is straightforward. Even if some paragraphs are clumpsy, the arguments are ordered, because his mind is clear.
1- It is more natural in French to have long sentences with multiple clauses than in English. It’s a language that is less practical than English which is part of why that language conquered the world. Everyone trying to learn both would tell you that. Translation is always tough especially for philosophical texts where you really have to focus on the exact meaning of the writer coming through.
2- Descartes is also writing in a French style that’s outdated but very understandable by today’s French speakers. Old French has even less practicality than modern French which has seen some simplifications throughout the years.
3- Finally, and most importantly, French philosophers (and French people in general – even today) generally look down on someone overfocused on being ONLY clear and practical. There is a long tradition of American vs French philosophical debates where the Americans constantly criticizes the French for being unclear and not defining terms well enough and French accusing Americans of being obsessed with definitions and premises and pseudo-mathematical thinking. For example, a French philosopher is expected to have a good command of the French language and not write in the way you would write a practical email.
Minor nitpick now, but BB writes: This sentence roughly translates to “I’ve resolved to doubt everything.”
Not exactly, more like: “I will keep trying to find something certain against all odds and if I fail, I will at least resolve to having the certainty that there are none.”
I agree with this. Six short and well-organized meditations, and a discourse on the method. Each sentence might be rewritten, but there are not to many of them, and he certainly broke new ground.
Descartes-enjoyer here. I clicked on this post excited to see that you were finally giving the history of philosophy a chance. 🥲 Just to register a countervailing intuition, I had basically the opposite aesthetic reaction to just about all of these sentences. Take this one: "Am I not that being who now doubts nearly everything, who nevertheless understands certain things, who affirms that one only is true, who denies all the others, who desires to know more, is averse from being deceived, who imagines many things, sometimes indeed despite his will, and who perceives many likewise, as by the intervention of the bodily organs?" This is beautiful! It's beautiful because each mental act that Descartes goes through, the doubting, the understanding, the affirming, the denying, the desiring, the being averse, the imagining, the perceiving--each of these is a phase in his process of reflection, culminating in the insight that *he* is behind it all. The repetition of each mental act in sequence here builds up to to the climax of his conclusion, creating suspense then payoff. It would be a shame if narrative and drama in philosophical writing were abandoned for the sake of keeping our sentences short and tidy all the time. That's not to say that long sentences are ipso facto good and bad sentences are ipso facto bad. Rather, a sentence should be as long as the thought it is meant to express. (And in the case of Descartes, in particular, following the thought process of the narrator is particularly important, since the reader is meant to go through the meditation herself alongside him.)
Well, Plato's easy to read. Except the Theaetetus, which - of course - was the only Plato text I was assigned to read in an intro philosophy course; and the Republic which - of course - was the only Plato text I was assigned in an intro Greek course. I wish they'd give the Meno, Gorgias, or Protagoras to beginners, but I almost have the feeling that some scholars prefer to put students off than ease them in.
I somewhat agree with your argument, but with a slightly different approach to it.
In my mind, promoting Descartes to new Philosophy students is like promoting Calculus in a math class in Grade 4. This isn't to say that Descartes is necessarily a better philosopher than a philosopher who speaks in a less verbose way, but simply that the verbosity itself represents a certain level of difficulty similar to the steadily increasing difficulty we see as we move from very simple math to very complicated math. Basically, Descartes should probably be saved for an *Advanced* Philosophy class, not for "Philosophy 101".
Philosophy 101 should indeed be "newbie friendly", so as to not overwhelm or simply bore people studying philosophy for the first time.
Agree. In my university, intro classes to philosophy often have Kant as first readings, WTF ? Choosing one of the most obscure writer in the history of philosophy to introduce people to the topic is such a bad move.
Just make them read Huemer or someone like him indeed
But that was elucidating the formal version of the argument rather than being used to explain. Often when you put an argument in terms of premises it will get very technical.
Yeah, I gotta say that BB's writing is clear enough when he's discussing some topics (like fine-tuning), but when he goes off on SIA and related subjects, I quickly get lost among all the probability-related arguments with coin-flipping, etc.
Bizarrely, some people actively enjoy Descartes’ writing style
https://x.com/helenreflects/status/1509631972909494273?s=46&t=COELKiXWSR0g62w8cbrCzA
> If we are going to make the introductory philosophy readings be clear and well-written, I have a modest suggestion for the texts that should be read, but tragically modesty prevents me from uttering it.
I think this is actually worth pursuing—a syllabus of exceptionally clearly written and engaging readings that is designed with the sole purpose of getting people hooked. I think a lot of what makes someone like Machiavelli or parts of Nietzsche so compelling to newcomers is precisely this property of their writing. So away with the cumbersome modesty! What is the philosophical canon of clear and compelling writing?
Which parts of Nietzsche are clearly written? I've read a decent amount of Nietzsche but I can't recall any of it being clear.
Yeah, some of his writing could get pretty dense and I don't know how much of this can be attributed to his own style or is the fault of his translators. If you've never gotten a kick out of reading him, I would start with Zarathustra.
"We’d do a lot more to get young people interested in philosophy if their first exposure came from someone who writes clearly rather than someone writing 400 years ago trying to win a competition for writing the world’s longest sentence—and succeeding!"
That's a pretty long sentence there... At least by modern standards.
Descartes, like any philosopher worth his salt, must be esoteric. He can't express himself too clearly, otherwise the powers-that-be will understand he's attacking their most cherished assumptions and the basis for their rule. Hence the verbiage. The Anglo-Saxon tradition has always worked under a stronger assumption of freedom of speech, which helps to explain why their philosophers are (relative) lightweights compared with the verbose continental tradition.
Lots of good philosophers are very clear writers--e.g. Parfit.
Something tells me he won't rank with Descartes and Kant
Descartes and Kant are more famous and influential but way worse at philosophy.
Kant is quite wordy, much like Descartes here, but I *think* the idea behind his categorical imperative has some value to it. It was something along the lines of "In evaluating the choices you make, ask yourself what the world would be like if everybody made the same choices. Would such a world still make sense, or even be able to function?" To simplify it even further, "we shouldn't make ourselves moral exemptions. 'Rules for thee, but not for me' is wrong".
'Rules for thee, but not for me' is a pretty common criticism in current political and cultural discourse. I frequently see it argued that a lot of our social and cultural elites basically live in a 'rules for thee, but not for me' way. In this sense, I find Kant's philosophical arguments to be as valuable today as they ever were.
Sure, the categorical imperative has some value, but Parfit probably has 5–10 similarly good ideas. I'd say Parfit's clarification of population ethics was a bigger breakthrough in moral philosophy than anything Kant did.
Possibly. But they were able to tackle controversial subjects in their time without being cancelled or imprisoned, in a way that clear writers can never do.
Was Parfit cancelled or imprisoned? Huemer?
Exactly
I feel a wave of relief wash over me at seeing someone admit that Descartes and Kant are not as good as the best modern philosophers. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when it seems like nobody but me believes this.
I kind of get what what you might be trying to say, but I'm curious how bad at philosophy they were for their time. I'd assume there's some reason they're ranked among the greatest philosophers. I'd love to hear more on why you think they were bad at philosophy, because that sounds like a pretty big claim.
Leo Strauss makes this point in Persecution and the Art of Writing. He cites Jewish examples -- Judah Halevi, Maimonides, and Spinoza. Descartes certainly shook things up, but by then -- after Francis Bacon -- lots of people were starting to shake things up.
I was told once by a Spanish speaker that these long meandering sentences are considered good literary style in Spanish. Can’t confirm but seems plausible. Could be the same in French. Probably also much easier to follow sentences like this in a language with grammatical gender and more elaborate verb conjugations.
It is funny how you take your having difficulty reading something and then describe it in such a way that makes it sound like a sign of your superior insight.
Did I say that?
You didn’t SAY that but your tone is preachy.
more ironic than preachy, don't you think?
Not quite. He's saying that because he understood it despite the difficulty, he's able to see that it didn't have to be that difficult. So his claim isn't based on his having a hard time with the easy task of philosophy, it's based on his succeeding at the hard task of reading Descartes.
It might be true that "difficult" is an ambijective (https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/05/05/ambijectivity/) word, but in this case I'm pretty sure Descartes is objectively difficult. (One great way to measure this would be to check the Flesch–Kincaid score of a Descartes essay against, say, a Bertrand Russell essay.)
He’s saying that he finds it difficult to read, and he knows how it should be written.
What the Hell? Descartes is not only transparent, above all, the man wrote brief opuscles, instead of long books.
On top of that his cosmovisión was simple and mostly correct. Remove God, naturalize mind and you get Chalmers (look at the length of “the conscious mind”! And how much over Descartes you get?)
Of course this is the problem for professional philosophers: Naturalistic dualism is so sound and clear that not much has been left for others.
One can write short essays unclearly. Are you really telling me the typical undergraduate or high school student would find Descartes clear?
Compared to contemporary writers he is clear: Look at Shakespeare (a popular writer!), Milton or Moore.
He was writing for an audience of scholastic scholars.
Additionally the logical structure of the arguments is straightforward. Even if some paragraphs are clumpsy, the arguments are ordered, because his mind is clear.
The Milton comparison hits, but I didn't think that was his point.
I think his point was that in literature we leave Milton for the more advanced students, but in philosophy we start with Kant.
No! We start precisely with Descartes, and after that everything is confusing in comparison!
I found Descartes clear at 16, while Parfit at 45 was perhaps well written, but tedious and long.
Native French speaker here. A few points:
1- It is more natural in French to have long sentences with multiple clauses than in English. It’s a language that is less practical than English which is part of why that language conquered the world. Everyone trying to learn both would tell you that. Translation is always tough especially for philosophical texts where you really have to focus on the exact meaning of the writer coming through.
2- Descartes is also writing in a French style that’s outdated but very understandable by today’s French speakers. Old French has even less practicality than modern French which has seen some simplifications throughout the years.
3- Finally, and most importantly, French philosophers (and French people in general – even today) generally look down on someone overfocused on being ONLY clear and practical. There is a long tradition of American vs French philosophical debates where the Americans constantly criticizes the French for being unclear and not defining terms well enough and French accusing Americans of being obsessed with definitions and premises and pseudo-mathematical thinking. For example, a French philosopher is expected to have a good command of the French language and not write in the way you would write a practical email.
Minor nitpick now, but BB writes: This sentence roughly translates to “I’ve resolved to doubt everything.”
Not exactly, more like: “I will keep trying to find something certain against all odds and if I fail, I will at least resolve to having the certainty that there are none.”
I agree with this. Six short and well-organized meditations, and a discourse on the method. Each sentence might be rewritten, but there are not to many of them, and he certainly broke new ground.
Descartes-enjoyer here. I clicked on this post excited to see that you were finally giving the history of philosophy a chance. 🥲 Just to register a countervailing intuition, I had basically the opposite aesthetic reaction to just about all of these sentences. Take this one: "Am I not that being who now doubts nearly everything, who nevertheless understands certain things, who affirms that one only is true, who denies all the others, who desires to know more, is averse from being deceived, who imagines many things, sometimes indeed despite his will, and who perceives many likewise, as by the intervention of the bodily organs?" This is beautiful! It's beautiful because each mental act that Descartes goes through, the doubting, the understanding, the affirming, the denying, the desiring, the being averse, the imagining, the perceiving--each of these is a phase in his process of reflection, culminating in the insight that *he* is behind it all. The repetition of each mental act in sequence here builds up to to the climax of his conclusion, creating suspense then payoff. It would be a shame if narrative and drama in philosophical writing were abandoned for the sake of keeping our sentences short and tidy all the time. That's not to say that long sentences are ipso facto good and bad sentences are ipso facto bad. Rather, a sentence should be as long as the thought it is meant to express. (And in the case of Descartes, in particular, following the thought process of the narrator is particularly important, since the reader is meant to go through the meditation herself alongside him.)
Well, Plato's easy to read. Except the Theaetetus, which - of course - was the only Plato text I was assigned to read in an intro philosophy course; and the Republic which - of course - was the only Plato text I was assigned in an intro Greek course. I wish they'd give the Meno, Gorgias, or Protagoras to beginners, but I almost have the feeling that some scholars prefer to put students off than ease them in.
I’m reading the authoritative translation for a class right now and I gotta say, I prefer the bastardized version
I somewhat agree with your argument, but with a slightly different approach to it.
In my mind, promoting Descartes to new Philosophy students is like promoting Calculus in a math class in Grade 4. This isn't to say that Descartes is necessarily a better philosopher than a philosopher who speaks in a less verbose way, but simply that the verbosity itself represents a certain level of difficulty similar to the steadily increasing difficulty we see as we move from very simple math to very complicated math. Basically, Descartes should probably be saved for an *Advanced* Philosophy class, not for "Philosophy 101".
Philosophy 101 should indeed be "newbie friendly", so as to not overwhelm or simply bore people studying philosophy for the first time.
Agree. In my university, intro classes to philosophy often have Kant as first readings, WTF ? Choosing one of the most obscure writer in the history of philosophy to introduce people to the topic is such a bad move.
Just make them read Huemer or someone like him indeed
let them read davidson!
Best intro text in terms of writing is probably Frege's Grundlagen. Delicious to read even for fun.
But that was elucidating the formal version of the argument rather than being used to explain. Often when you put an argument in terms of premises it will get very technical.
Yeah, I gotta say that BB's writing is clear enough when he's discussing some topics (like fine-tuning), but when he goes off on SIA and related subjects, I quickly get lost among all the probability-related arguments with coin-flipping, etc.